Modeling Suppressive Fire

[castiglione]

This is an idea I had about modeling suppressive fire.

It's based on two things:

1) An article I read in TIME magazine about how people behave when under stress; according to the article, the most common reaction when people "panic" is for them to freeze, rather than run around like headless chickens.

2) A discussion on a wargame forum where a USMC infantry captain stated that the usual way battles end is by participants on both sides deciding they've had enough of risking their lives for the day. Basically, the battle grinds to a halt and both sides withdraw.

Sooo...here's my "system".

Each combatant rolls 1d6 for initiative. Initiative is modified by the following:

1) The skill TACTICS is added to the initiative die roll.

2) The skill LEADER - the highest LEADER skill in a group is added to the initiative die roll of PC's within a certain distance of the leader (the PC with the highest LEADER skill).

3) SUPPRESSION - SUPPRESSION (more on this later) of each PC is subtracted from their initiative die roll.

Combatants act in turn of their initiative. Dies are broken with the TACTICS skill, and then with DEXTERITY, in case of a tie in TACTICS.

However, if initiative is less than 0, the combatant CANNOT act this turn and the negative initiative is treated as a negative modifier for initiative in the NEXT combat turn, i.e. if initiative is -3, the combatant can not do anything this turn and next turn, a modifier of -3 is applied to his initiative die roll.

SUPPRESSION: SUPPRESSION accumulates during a battle. Whenever a PC or NPC fires on an enemy, he inflicts one unit of SUPPRESSION on his target if he misses but if the amount he misses by is equal to or less than the dice of damage his weapon inflicts +1 for each extra bullet; if he hits his target, he inflicts two units of SUPPRESSION. Example, NPC #1 fires a burst (4 rounds) at NPC #2 with his automatic rifle. He needs to roll 10+ to hit. If he rolls 2-3, he misses. If he rolls 4-9, he misses but inflicts one unit of SUPPRESSION (he can miss by up to 6 - 3 for the 3D of the rifle and +3 for the three extra rounds). If he rolls 10+, he hits and inflicts two units of SUPPRESSION.

At the end of each combat round, each PC can LOSE one units of SUPPRESSION buy rolling 8+ on 2D. He gets a positive modifier for the LEADER skill of another PC if he is close enough to that PC.

Thus, the way this works is that over the course of the battle, combatants accumulate SUPPRESSION and so combat eventually bogs down and effectively, assuming there are survivors, both sides back off and call it quits. Note that if two sides are fighting and the participants accumulate SUPPRESSION and another group joins the battle, the fresh group will have a tremendous advantage since they will have no SUPPRESSION at all and will have an advantage at winning initiative.

The reason I decided to have suppressive fire affect initiative was because it occurred to me that being shot at would adversively affect the length of one's OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop. Basically, as the situation began to go more and more pear-shaped, people would take longer and longer to assess their situation and act.

 

[far-trader]

I've only had a quick read and first thought on it but it seems too simulationist for an RPG. Excellent for a tabletop miniatures battle though. If that makes sense. I'll give it a bit longer pondering and see if I have any constructive critique to add

 

[Supplement Four]

This is an idea I had about modeling suppressive fire.

It's based on two things:

1) An article I read in TIME magazine about how people behave when under stress; according to the article, the most common reaction when people "panic" is for them to freeze, rather than run around like headless chickens.

So advance should be halted on a successful suppressive fire routine.

2) A discussion on a wargame forum where a USMC infantry captain stated that the usual way battles end is by participants on both sides deciding they've had enough of risking their lives for the day. Basically, the battle grinds to a halt and both sides withdraw.

Then, I submit to you the morale system in CT Mercenary. This seems like it would be a failure to roll morale.

To keep it simple (because that works best with CT), have your suppressive fire be based on a 2D throw....the attack throw comes to mind.

If the roll is higher than the target's morale, the target freezes.

Simple enough. Easy to use in an RPG.

Morale checks in Mercenary are basicall 2D for Morale or less. So, this system would work perfectly.

If Suppressive Fire Attack is higher than morale, then target freezes, advance is halted.

 

[Icosahedron]

Sorry, I was with you until your description of Suppression, Castiglione, but when you have to examine each individual soldier for Initiative and Tactics, then measure the distance to the nearest Leader, figure the skill of that leader, count how many bullets were fired at the soldier, and then total up how many turns he's been fired upon, I can see this acting more as Player suppression than Character suppression.

I'd have my character lay low for the rest of the firefight simply to avoid doing the calculations.

I have to say I prefer the simplicity of S4's approach - it may not be so technically competent (and I appreciate the realism you're trying to achieve) but it's much more playable. What it lacks, apparently, is a cumulative effect. Maybe if freezing reduces Morale...?

 

[castiglione]

LOL - I guess they are a bit involved although you may have misunderstood the "counting bullets thing"; that's only when a character gets fired on by an automatic weapon. Most of the time (using CT Book 1), the number of bullets will be 1 so won't affect things, so all you have to know is how much dice of damage the firearm causes (which in most cases is 3D, so if you miss by three or less, you inflict SUPPRESSION). The rest of the time, it will be four.

My first version had SUPPRESSION affect a character's ability to fire (it became a penalty on his to hit rolls, rather than his initiative), the idea being that as the battle raged and a character saw tracers flashing all around him, he'd tend to hunker down more and more and spend less time aiming and more time trying to become part of the floor, wall, etc. until eventually, he had virtually no chance of hitting anything at all.

That's probably a much simpler version since there are no more rolls for initiative (combat is simultaneous as in CT Book 1) and SUPPRESSION still builds up over time. I'd probably work in the use of TACTICS and LEADER somehow, as a sort of "SUPPRESSION HIT POINT".

 

[DaveChase]

From real life and repeated exposure

You will have individuals who can and will cause others to unfreeze, attack through a firefight, uplift morale and such.

They are not always the leaders/officers/SGTs.

Of course I like the basics of Travellers rules, Striker address this fairly well and a game is just a game so have fun.

If you want to make RPG more real then you need to fact in many different things with suppression.
Experience, motivation, discipline, trust in group/teammates, training and then individual condition

In that order IMO.

Unless I was playing small unit tactics or one on one type RPG, I would rather not have to worry about all these factors in my head, reading charts or doing lots of rolling.
For miniatures, I would not mind.

As for your suggestion on cumilation of effect. Interesting and sounds fairly easy.
How do you suggest that the a cumilated negatives get reset or positive?
How you determine when that one individual does something massively impressive that causes all of those around them to jump up and attack through the suppersion? (and I am not talking leadership)

Dave Chase

 

[castiglione]

How do you suggest that the a cumilated negatives get reset or positive?
How you determine when that one individual does something massively impressive that causes all of those around them to jump up and attack through the suppersion? (and I am not talking leadership)

Cumulative negatives don't get reset or positive. They basically creep downward (with occasional upward bumps) but they basically just go down and stay down.

Someone jumping up and doing something impressive is its own reward. Noone gets inspired, etc. The only way it can positively affect the situation is that it may take the pressure of those who are cowering and give them a chance to recover a little bit of their brass.

 

[DaveChase]

Hmm,

Cumulative negatives don't get reset or positive. They basically creep downward (with occasional upward bumps) but they basically just go down and stay down.

Someone jumping up and doing something impressive is its own reward. Noone gets inspired, etc. The only way it can positively affect the situation is that it may take the pressure of those who are cowering and give them a chance to recover a little bit of their brass.

OK. (shrug)

Maybe, sometime when you have a chance, take a read through some of the medal of honor awardees and the description of what they did and how it effected the troops around them.
(If you do also take the time to read what history said about some of those actions also for insight)
Then talk to some veterans who have been part of one services who the rewardee was of and how their legend/story effects them to do great things.
If you can, (and this is very difficult because most will not want to talk about it) talk with people who served with such an individual.

A Cliff Notes version, watch/read Blackhawk Down. (No insult intended to those service members as the story was about as real as actually being there.)

I do agree that there is always some negative attitude/response/lowered moral after any suppression incident. Maybe severe enough to have negative mental disads to the character. But I do know that One or more people doing something positive during a suppression (besides being the leader) can change how bad people are suppression.
Telling a joke, reminding them of their duty and stupid it can be, after this rattle snakes will run from you, telling everyone what they need to do and even firing/attacking back can help others under suppresive fire. Each case is different and unique.

Of course, if the person who is trying to do such fails the suppression effect is worse.

Dave Chase

 

[DaveChase]

Ok Maybe a little real world nonvolient example could help

This took place during a paint ball game at a large park just for paint balling.

Years ago, I paint balled a lot and even worked with several military groups using such for training. (no one really dies, no real bullets but lots of oh, shits and damns.

An Army buddy of mine (who had seen action before and had been fired at with real bullets) decided he wanted to come play one weekend. He brought his best friend (who never served any type of military). They got suited up and played 2 beginner games (the park always had brand new players play each other to get use to being hit and work out the nervousness. The park always had refrees who knew to take it easy on the newbees and work with them.

Later these two guys joined my group for a large 12+ men a side capture the flag/defend your flag 45min game. This was not a true team effort just people who drew armbands and got stuck on that side/team. Since we were already in play (had a 2 minute dead time before you could come alive back at base camp/base flag,) they joined our group because we were the short number team.

(OK, now the example stuff)
These 2 decided to head out on their own and we let them. I was doing my normal center field, annoy the other team with loud comments on their movement from the base/tower. After a bit one dead guy came back and said that I should check on my buddies as they were pinned in the left draw. After he came a live, I headed out.

The Army buddy (Sonny) was pinned down behind a 4ft dia tree with 3 guys shooting at him. He was in the draw with the tree between him and the firers. His best friend (Jay) was shooting at the 3 firers by raising his gun over the log he was behind and pulling the trigger. Most shots did not even go into the right direction. He even took out two of our team mates because he was shooting anything that moved (including birds.)

I worked my way down the draw after yelling at Jay to take it easy. Doing such behind a tree so I would not get shot. When I got to Sonny, he was in a panic. He would not move or shoot. (Of course, I understood why because he had been on the receiving end of real bullets before.)
I tried talking him down, calming if possible, but no luck. I even shot at the 3 firers (which later I found out that they were new also otherwise they would have taken him out long time ago.) Even hit one after a few attempts. Sonny still would not move or do anything.
OK, this was getting out of hand, 3 of us doing nothing to win the game.
I told Sonny to start crawling or I would throw him out from behind the tree. He just curled up.
I yelled at Jay to just start shooting at the 2 remaining firers and then threw Sonny farther down the draw away from the tree and then charged the 2 firers.
Jay jumped up and charged them also, with both of us firing. Sonny started firing very shortly after that and the 3 of us took them out.

I found out later that Sonny seriously thought about shooting me in the back. (Thank God it was only paintball and we had been Army buddies for a long time.)

Later, even though Sonny does not like talking about it. Jay will tell everyone about how important it is to not let your self get pinned down and if you do, then do something. (Jay became quite the paintballer after that, even capt his own team for about 2 years.)

I know, you are saying paintball, sheesh. But paintball is pain, adrenlene (sp), dry mouth, and endorphene high. You might be able to walk away from every game win or loose but it is as close to combat as you can get with out real wounds (from bullets that is).

Though my actions with Sonny were not inspiring to him, they were to Jay. Jays actions (following mine) caused Sonny to take action. Not Medal of Honor stuff by a long shot but still the same thing that caused those under suppression to break it.

(OK, I will step down from my soap box. Still don't know how I ended up standing on it.)
I just get a wee bit touched when someone say real life about games (RPG especially) and then says it don't work that way. Especailly when I know differently from Real life my self.
(No offense taken and none should be given from this.)

Dave Chase

 

[castiglione]

This will be my last post on this thread.

1) You seem to have gotten very upset by my last post. I will not apologize since I don't see how I might have offended but at the risk of further offense, I would suggest you calm down. Deep breaths and/or some hard liquor might help.

2) My goal was to devise a combat system using the CT Book 1 combat system as its base and grafting on a mechanism for suppressive fire and end up with a system that was still suitable for an RPG. Having mechanism for people getting inspired by heroic acts falls into the territory of man-to-man scale wargames and miniatures rules.

3) You assume a lot when you start telling me I should read this and that.

 

[mike wightman]

I think Dave was just very politely pointing out some of the flaws with your rules, he then gives examples of where the real world can be investigated to make said rules a bit more "realistic", and then uses a apintball story to show he has personal experience of such things.

There is a case for "suppression" as you call it to be made more positive - if the enemy obviously routs. There are many cases of victorious trooops being close to breaking point, the enemy routes, and then suddenly the victors get a new surge of elan.

 

[Icosahedron]

I think this all comes down to whether we are modelling suppressive fire in a wargame or a RPG.
In a wargame it is obviously linked to Morale, and if the morale rules are decent they will incorporate positives for advancing friends or routing foes, which will possibly bring troops out of suppression (though as Dave himself notes, if the suppressive fire is competent, it might all be over before anyone thinks of being a hero). However, in a RPG, we are dealing mainly with Player Characters, who generally do not follow morale rules, and I think in this case we are used to any suppression being temporary - particularly in more cinematic games.
I think the two situations require different solutions.

 

[CosmicGamer]

First, I have nothing against people making their own rules and customizing things to fit their own playing style.

At first glance at the original post I liked what you were trying to do put thought it would slow down combat. After re-reading it and looking at other posts in this thread, I decided the Traveller is a RPG so, for me, I'll let the player decide if he wants his character to cower, flee, or charge. Even if the dice were to say your character is not suppressed doesn't matter. You can still RP your character as a sniveling cowardly doctor who curls up in a ball whenever fired upon.

Again, just my personal view, but I say players can decide what their characters do by role playing how the enemy and friendly actions would effect their character (perhaps using the characters past combat experience, relevant skills, individual personality). Leave the dice out of it.

If I were to play with a GM who utilized suppression rules, I would prefer a simple approach like I believe Supplement Four's is trying to suggest. http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=285662&postcount=3

Last, If combat was done with miniatures to try and simulation a more detailed and realistic combat, I wouldn't mind the more elaborate rules. So here is my idea to toss into the discussion. Endurance is the stat that best represents a characters fortitude so maybe it should be a factor in determining how easily someone is suppressed or how hard it will be to motivate them once they are suppressed.

Have a nice day, hopefully free from suppression fire posts.

 

[pendragonman]

snip...
You can still RP your character as a sniveling cowardly doctor who curls up in a ball whenever fired upon.

Not all doctors are sniveling cowards. I have a 5 term Marine who ended up with Medical-3 and Grenade Launcher 2. I have always played him as the bringer of fire support. He carries an M69 grenade Launcher and usually ten rounds for it, usually HE. The party I was in called me when they needed suppressive fire, even though there were other Marines with higher gun combat skills. I just had the knack of laying that grenade on target, and I had a better "cool" under fire than anyone else, being a combat doc.

 

[Jamus]

I know, you are saying paintball, sheesh. But paintball is pain, adrenlene (sp), dry mouth, and endorphene high. You might be able to walk away from every game win or loose but it is as close to combat as you can get with out real wounds (from bullets that is).
Dave Chase

paint ball is not even close to combat. Sounds like your army buddy had some problems and was taking things way more serious than he should have.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Not all doctors are sniveling cowards.

Never said they were.

-----

Also of note, not all multi term military combat vets are cool under fire either.

I could play my 4 term army character as having left the service after a horrific experience of having his unit be under attack by superior numbers and getting shot to heck. He is a great shot at the firing range with a wide variety of weapons but now whenever he is in combat and his adrenalin starts to pump, he flashes back to images of all his buddies getting shot up. Whenever he is under fire he starts calling people with him by the names of the soldiers he fought with.

He grabs John by the arm, causing him to miss his shot "We've got to get out of here before they kill you Tom!"

I like role playing, not dice playing.

Have a good day.

 

[DaveChase]

Interesting point

paint ball is not even close to combat. Sounds like your army buddy had some problems and was taking things way more serious than he should have.

But I will agree to disagree with you.

Is boxing even close to combat, yet for many years, boxing was form of training for military to prepare them for combat.

Is hunting even close to combat, yet for some who can shoot all day long at targets they can not (mentally) hunt or kill an animal even for food.

Some people can not actually pull the trigger of a paintball gun to shoot a person. Even though they know it is only going to sting and bruise the person.

Training and training and training. If you train only in controlled enviroments in a ritualistic fashion THEN you react the same way with the same actions during the actual event ASSuming that you do react.

I have seen military leaders excel at miniature training games, in both small unit and massive battles. YET when placed into a real time, real people, real reports training session lose it and fail to complete the exact same mission as rehearsed on the miniature board.

Jamus, I fully support your opinion as this is a right that I believe all thinking individuals should be allowed.
I disagree strongly with your opinion because combat means

verb

To strive in opposition: battle, contend, duel, fight, struggle, tilt, war, wrestle. See conflict/cooperation.

noun

A hostile encounter between opposing military forces: action, battle, engagement. See conflict/cooperation.

YET I will concur with you on the following about paintball not being combat
People don't really die from it. Though I know of some broken limbs/noses (impact with terrain and such) and 1 heartattack (shouldn't been playing any sports).

Next to laser tag (military called it M.I.L.E.S.) paintball has been a wonderful tool to teach military and law enforcement survivable combat techinques. Law enforcement has used and some continue to use wax bullets in both live people training and a video/computer screen training.

Dave Chase
(been there, done that, live with it, and hope to pass on to others the importance of never having to others being required to live it.)

Note: though I did not list the actual reference used for the definition of Combat it was taken from a dictionary

 

[DaveChase]

Hell yeah,

After re-reading it and looking at other posts in this thread, I decided the Traveller is a RPG so, for me, I'll let the player decide if he wants his character to cower, flee, or charge. Even if the dice were to say your character is not suppressed doesn't matter. You can still RP your character as a sniveling cowardly doctor who curls up in a ball whenever fired upon.

Again, just my personal view, but I say players can decide what their characters do by role playing how the enemy and friendly actions would effect their character (perhaps using the characters past combat experience, relevant skills, individual personality). Leave the dice out of it.

I like doing such (it is a game after all
Even got more experience out it (character points that is) for playing that way with a character once. It even helped the GM because it added something unusal to normal encounters.
Fantasy game RPG, had a character get caught up in a Fire Warlock castle (element magic) that lost control during a ritual. Me and the dwarf did not make it out before the whole rock/stone walls started to burn and melt. After several near misses we made it the last gate before freedom, but it was on fire. With out any prompting from the GM the dwarf player and decided to roll against our will to leap through the fire (we both figured it would be an easy roll for our high wills). We both rolled a critical failure. Then we with the GM started rolling with negative adds to will until we both made it.

After ward both the dwarf player and I talked to the GM and asked if we could add a fear large fire to our character traits and the dward wanted a haterd of Fire Warlocks also.
The GM agreed as long as we both played it up for at least 3 game sessions then he would allow it.

Neither my character or the dwarf would sit near any open fire or torch for over month (game time) and neither would eat any food cooked over an open flame. This was really bad for the dwarf and the other characters as the dwarf was the groups cook. Almost 3 months (game time) later, my character got shot by an arrow in the leg. While I was bandaging it the groups cleric (who was out of spells to heal and no potions) came over with a red hot metal rod and offered to sear the wound shut. With out a pause I stated I slugged her (the cleric that is). Now the player was stunned. Even more so when the GM awarded me some extra exp for staying in character that night.

(We had to remind the cleric player about my new found phobia. )

I personally like it when players add some flavor to their characters and then play it as if it was real during the game. Like only smoking a certain brand and will not even consider any other and goes to lengths to find a venue for that brand as soon as we land. Ties up the local access computer searching for it every time we land at new planet.
Things like that make RPG more fun than playing a computer RPG.

Dave Chase

 

[Jamus]

Its cool that you are willing to agree to disagree. That said having played paint ball and also having spent 11 months in Iraq with 3/7th infantry 24ID I see absolutely no similarity between the two any more than I would say kids playing with super soakers are doing combat training. My unit never used paint ball for training. As I am training to be a fire fighter and not I cop I cant speak for what the police do either.

I was a member of the SCA but would never claim that SCA combat is anything like actual medieval combat would be. Thats just silly as were most of the comparisons you listed.

 

[DaveChase]

Ah, I think I see the point that we disagree on

Its cool that you are willing to agree to disagree. That said having played paint ball and also having spent 11 months in Iraq with 3/7th infantry 24ID I see absolutely no similarity between the two any more than I would say kids playing with super soakers are doing combat training. My unit never used paint ball for training. As I am training to be a fire fighter and not I cop I cant speak for what the police do either.

I was a member of the SCA but would never claim that SCA combat is anything like actual medieval combat would be. Thats just silly as were most of the comparisons you listed.

It is more how it is used versus what it is.
Paintball the game or paintball the training
Supersoakers the get wet fun or supersoakers the carry a weapon and work as a team to get the other side wet
Remember back to basic training: Every knows how to walk before they get their but do they know how to march together?
And why march in formation at all? Because that leads up to formations of combat and that leads to unit cohesion.
Why train regularly after you have been certified as X. Because with out regular work outs you will lose your edge and unit cohesion. With out any type of practice you lose the instant reaction with out thinking that is needed to survive a firefight/ambush/etc.

I will absoultely agree that the game of paintball is not combat as in firefights/ambush/clearing rooms. But the use of paintball a training tool can be very effect in keeping an edge on combat troops.
Let me give an example that both Ranger and Special Forces have used in the past.
Live fire in tire house. This is a building with walls lined and made of old tires filled with material to stop bullet penatration. Live ammo is used and it is done at combat speed. Sometimes the house was not available and many times live ammo was not available yet both groups continued to practice using paintball guns instead.
Another example (one I was actually apart of), A group was practicing ambushing techinques using MILES(full time active duty unit) of which I was one of the pre ARTEP evaluators. (1/2 were ambushers 1/2 were the ambushees)
Our AAR (After Action Review) told them that they were having friendly fire problems otherwise it was a good run. Their LT and PLT SGT were livid and accused us of lying.
After a while the Capt of the main unit asked if we could prove this and after some discussion I and the Lead evaluator talked him in taking a look at the paintball training offered on North Fort. We explained that each side would be given color paintballs and that paintballs unlike MILES would travel through leaves.
Once he saw that the paintball guns were just like the M16 (they do exist) he was willing to give it a try on the condition that if we where wrong that we would sign off on the evaluation. We agreed
With specail premssion from the the post SGM we did the exercise on the same range as the first eval.
After completed the ambushers had a 60% of their causalites from friendly fire. 10% of the ambushees were friendly fire. Now in real life this can happen so after a short AAR we did it again. 40% ambushers and 15% ambushees from friendly (and the LT had doubled checked everyones ammo colors becuase he was sure we switched the paint.)

Any tool can be used for training or fun or stupid shit. How it is use is the important thing.

I hope that my long winded speech above made some sense. I think that Jamus and I are actually agreeing on most when talking about the game of paintball. And that our disagreement is more on how it used.

And even SCA can lend some combat training if only in the fact of what you should not do. SCA fighting styles if you did that type of stuff against a real knight/medivel warrior you would get your ass kicked worse than Monty Pythons black knight.

SCA unit fighting actually could be use for PT and unit cohesion along with you will figure out who is afraid of being hit/hurt. But once again how it used and why it used makes the difference between similar to real life or worse than a first person shooter game.

Dave Chase